Reviews

Too bad really, I'd bet the original story wan't nearly as awefull, and the film's beginning was "promising", but then we get to the middle, the aliens (Marty Feldman look-alikes, let's jusy call them, "FELDMEN")and the monsters, just stock footage of bugs and reptiles that just seemed to go on and on, and on...
After that it did sort of pick up again (though not much) and thankfully ended, abruptly, and brothers and sisters, believe me, that abruptness is a blessing. Good to fall asleep to.

From the funny special effects to the super-silly scientific mumbo-jumbo to the bug-eyed aliens to the stock footage to the view out of the power plant window of an aerial view of a hydrogen bomb blast at the end of the film, this is one good 'so bad it's good' movie.

One last moment, worthy of Ed Wood, in the film: When Dr. Martin (Peter Graves) takes a gun away from a power plant employee, he points the butt of the gun at the employee, which is corrected shortly afterward. Still, the director didn't reshoot the previous scenes. Love it!

1) Barbara Bestar who plays Ellen. Simply delicious. Ouch! I kinda hoping that Peter Graves would get knocked off by the bug-eyed creeps so that the grieving widow Ellen would be available again.

2) That 1953 Studebaker. Sex Machine! Yes-In-Dee-Dee! I could imagine myself driving up the PCH to Santa Barbara with Ellen beside me and a mushroom cloud in my rear view mirror! Of course that could not happen because I was about four months old at the time of filming and could not reach the gas pedal.

I admit I'm basing my review on a DVD copy I own and have watched in its entirety, so I cannot really comment on the quality of this exact upload, though I watched the opening two minutes of this upload and it seemed fine. I do wonder, though, why the uploader, "Movie Powder", uploaded a film that has already been uploaded twice. But that doesn't matter (and I am not allowed to write a second review for the earlier upload).

This is not great cinema by any means. Cheap stock footage, freeze-frames, cheesy make-up, a silly ending, its all here.

Yet, it has a naive charm, and makes for fun viewing if you like this sort of low-budget sci-fi. The pacing is good, the script is silly but pleasant, it has Peter Graves, its wonderfully dated and certainly much better than that "Battlefield Earth" film from about 10 years ago.

So, I like it. This was brainless saturday-afternoon entertainment then and it still is now. Some people will probably find things to dislike about the film, and that is understandable. But, hey, give it a try. You might or might not like it!